There Is Nothing Wrong with Me
by ConsultandDetect
Summary: An original WhoLock AU in which the Doctor helps Sherlock avert a personal catastrophe. Work in progress. Originally published on AO3.
1. Part I: Watching

**PART I: Watching**

**Seven Months after Reichenbach: London.**

Sherlock Holmes was, for all intents and purposes, dead. Seven months earlier, he had staged an elaborate suicide involving, among other things, a rubber handball, an overly loyal pathologist named Molly, and a bloody body lying on the concrete out front of St. Bart's. His trick had succeeded just as he had meticulously planned-there was even a nice onyx headstone in a small North London cemetery with his name in impeccable engraving, the finality of which no one questioned.

With no hope of returning to 221B Baker Street, Sherlock had turned to his beloved homeless network for help. A few fifty pound notes later, he had comfortably assumed the identity of a struggling avant garde violinist who had recently succumbed to AIDS, leaving his industrial hellhole of a loft abandoned-aside from the colonies of used syringes.

But his new life left him flat and, more unsettling to the former consulting detective, bored. He'd taken to wandering the streets, people-watching, silently deducing their entire life stories from their gait, their umbrellas, their choice of beverage. He deduced the mailman, the greengrocer, anyone who could, if even for a second, distract his mind. His favourites were the tourist families at Picadilly. He always did enjoy a good family spat-for God's sake, Mycroft practically taught classes in dysfunctional family dynamics-and tourists, with their jet lag and their fanny packs and their screaming toddlers, did not disappoint.

Sherlock would walk the streets of London, relentlessly seeking any and all intellectual stimuli to distract himself from his predicament. He walked until his soles ached and his head grew heavy with the exhaustion of a life so lonely and mundane, it was the only punishment fit for the disgraced genius.

Despite his distaste for sentiment, his walks inevitably led him down Baker Street. He would stop by about once a week, just to check up. Sometimes he stood across the street, idling nursing a cigarette while observing the comings and goings of 221B. Sometimes he stood on the front stoop, eyes level with the knocker, finger poised to ring the bell. But he never actually moved his finger that last quarter inch; Mrs. Hudson would probably fall dead at the very sight of his face and, well, that would just be counterproductive. But checking up-what harm could it do? And besides, he needed it. It brought him a small sense of reassurance that the world had continued to turn after Reichenbach, that John and Mrs. Hudson had kept on, that his death was his and his alone.

But today when he glanced up at the window of the second floor flat-formerly home to his characteristically morbid collections of anatomical tchotchkes-Sherlock saw, for the first time, the slow toxicity of his death.

John was making tea-a perfectly normal ritual for the retired army doctor. Sherlock watched, enraptured, as his singular friend carefully measured two sugars into his cup. The former detective smiled an almost imperceptible smile, the corners of his mouth turning up ever so slightly as he remembered John and the sugar and Baskerville.

Having helped himself to enough sugar, John sat back into Sherlock's cracked leather chair and placed the steaming mug on the low table. He slowly sunk his head into his hands, massaging his temples with his index fingers. A headache. Seven months previous, Sherlock would have inferred John's pains were the result of too much wine the night before with whatever floozy he was currently courting. Now, Sherlock knew better. John hadn't talked to a woman besides Mrs. Hudson for months, much less vainly attempted to entertain one in a too-dim restaurant. Mrs. Hudson kept pushing him to ask the green grocer's niece out for drinks, but John adamantly refused. "It doesn't seem right," he would say, as he and the landlady-not-housekeeper sat in Speedy's on Sunday mornings.

Sherlock was still staring at John's hunched back-funny how no one had bothered to change or rearrange the furniture since he'd left; people normally do, when someone dies-when John unexpectedly rose from the chair. His back still to the window, he moved to the mantel, where he inspected something closely, running his finger along it, tracing its shape. Sherlock strained to make out what it was but-oh, bloody hell, it was just too far away to tell. He was about to give up when John turned around, and Sherlock glimpsed the object of the blogger's ministrations.

John stood, oblivious to his watchful audience, cradling a pistol in his hands. His hands: his tired, weathered, steady hands. With serene confidence, John lifted the gun to his mouth and fired.


	2. Part II: Waiting

**PART II: Waiting**

**Eighteen Months Earlier: Somewhere Far, Far Away**

The Doctor wiped goop off his hands and straightened his bow tie. Behind him, Clara struggled to fit her right foot inside her left shoe, as she had lost both of her shoes while narrowly escaping an alien that can only be described as so undeniably bog-like, Clara had accidentally stepped on-or rather, in-it.

"Well, I'm glad that's over. Now that we've sonic-ed the-what did you call it again?-that thing into oblivion, what's next? Can we go to Pluto? I've always wanted to go to Pluto, even though it's not a planet anymore. Who made that decision, anyway? Where are we going? I hope it's someplace interesting. Anywhere, really. Anywhere but Cardiff. I don't like Cardiff." She crinkled her nose at the thought.

"We're going to London." The Doctor strode towards the TARDIS, which he had parked-or more accurately, haphazardly kerplunked-in the middle of a pond.

"London?" Clara cocked her head thoughtfully. "Well, it's not Cardiff, but it's not exactly Pluto, either. Why London?"

"It's, ahh, a bit of a project. Someone needs our help." Without saying more, the Doctor walked right into the pond scum, not stopping until he reached the TARDIS, where he easily

Clara, who was several yards behind, on account of her still struggling to slip her shoes onto the right feet, paused at the bank of the pond. "Well, is that it then? Are you going to tell me more, or am I supposed to just wade in after you?" She looked at the water, suspiciously eyeing its alarming chartreuse color; she wasn't very keen to step on another marshy alien life form any time soon. "For all I know, you could be taking me to meet a-a-" She struggled, searching for a shocking enough noun. "I don't know, a psychopath or something."

The Doctor turned around to face her, eyes serious. "High-functioning sociopath, actually."

Clara's mouth played up at the corners, amused at what she interpreted as the Doctor's attempt at humor, but the Doctor remained deadpan. Clara's jaw slowly unhinged, until her mouth gaped open at the realization that he was absolutely serious. "You're...you're not kidding, are you? We're actually going to meet a madman?"

"We're going to meet a very important person, Clara, someone who is very important to me. He's in trouble-or he's going to be, and we're the only ones who can help."

"Aren't sociopaths dangerous?"

"I don't know. No. Yes. Maybe. Probably. Dangerous, yes." The Doctor's eyes twinkled. "And absolutely, one-hundred-percent brilliant fun." He extended his hand across the water towards Clara. "No time to waste, then! Come on!"

Clara dubiously eyed the snot-green water one last time before plunging her left foot in. She waded as quickly as is possible through alien pond slime-which is fairly quickly, on account of how slippery it is-towards the TARDIS. Grasping the Doctor's extended hand, she hoisted herself out of the muck and into the old blue box, which was looking slightly worse for the wear due to its rather unconventional parking spot.

As she stepped through the door, the Doctor tossed her a towel. "Wipe your feet," he instructed her. "The TARDIS doesn't like the damp, and she's having a difficult enough time with you as it is. Wouldn't want to make her angry."

Clara glanced at the towel in her hand and back at the Doctor. "Well then you might not have wanted to, I don't know, plant her in a pond. Seriously. If she's annoyed, it's nothing to do with me."

The Doctor grinned widely at his companion's cheeky words. "Ah, yes. The landing wasn't...wasn't quite right. Work on that for next time. In the meanwhile, get yourself tidied up; we're going to London!"

Clara wiped the soles of her shoes and trod over to the console, where the Doctor was schizophrenically adjusting dials and levers and buttons and switches.

"So uhh. This friend of yours. The one who's in trouble?"

"Yes, friend. Yes. Well, friend would be a bit of a stretch, seeing as he...hasn't...actually...met me yet," the Doctor slowly admitted.

"So...we're going to save someone who we don't know from something that hasn't even happened yet?" She looked at the Doctor, her eyes displaying earnest curiosity tinged with worry.

"Clara, listen to me carefully. You know when something bad happens, and afterwards someone points out that the whole mess could have been avoided? Like when you read in your history books that WWI only happened because someone shot at the Archduke-who was, if you ask me, asking for it entirely, what with his home planet planning to invade Earth and all. This is one of those messes, and I've got to help avoid it. Or else things will happen that shouldn't happen. Bad things-very bad things, Clara." The Doctor spoke softly, returning her gaze with equal earnestness.

"So...you're saying we're about to go avert, what, World War III?"

'No, World War III won't happen for another few thousand years. And it won't start in London. AH! London!" The Doctor remembered that he was supposed to be flying the TARDIS which, despite having an incredibly accurate autopilot, was a bit miffed about having had alien mud tracked all over her insides and was rattling about the universe in a rather alarming manner. (Nothing too terrible, of course; just enough to shock the Doctor back into being an attentive owner.)

Dashing halfway around the console to vigorously fiddle with a lever, the Doctor called to Clara, "Besides, it's been a while since we've been to London. Maybe we could pop in at your home, see the children-but no Blind Man's Bluff, you hear? They cheat!"

Clara laughed at the memory of her young charges, who always managed to confound the childlike Doctor by being more adult than he was. "Could you at least tell me who it is we're helping?"

The Doctor looked up from his diligent attempts to steer the TARDIS on course. "He's a-well, I guess you could call him a genius. Brilliant, actually. Never heard of a more clever human. He's a bit of an amateur detective. Solves crimes, catches criminals, collects the reward money-you know, the whole bit." The Doctor paused. "Oh, and he wears a funny hat. Funny hats are cool."

"Alright, so we're going to help a genius detective in a hat. That's a helpful description," Clara remarked wryly. "What's his name? I ought to at least know his name."

The Doctor let go of the lever and straightened up to face Clara. "His name is Sherlock Holmes."

"Sherlock...Holmes? Like the character? From the mystery books?" Clara's confused voice extrapolated on her puzzled expression. "But...but he's not real. Isn't he? Doctor, tell me he's not real."

"Oh, he's very real, Clara; realer than you'd ever expect." The Doctor walked over as the TARDIS thudded softly to the ground. "And he's very much in trouble-or he will be in a few months, anyway."

"A few months?! If he's not going to be in trouble until then, why are we here now?"

"You know how I said it's a project? It's, ahh, a bit of a long-term project." The Doctor continued explaining, in hopes of allaying Clara's apparent alarm at the thought of sitting inside a parked TARDIS for any long period of time. "Clara, in eighteen months, Sherlock Holmes will walk through that door." The Doctor pointed behind him, to the TARDIS's only entrance. "He will have just witnessed his best friend's suicide, and he'll be looking to phone anonymously for help. We've got to help him, Clara."

"Why can't we just let him actually phone the police? Or...just get his friend to a therapist or something?"

The Doctor paused. "Well, yes, that's a very good question. It's a bit complicated-very complicated, actually. You see, his friend-John's his name, though you're probably familiar with him as Watson-doesn't know Sherlock's alive."

Clara crinkled her nose. "How can you be friends with someone you don't know exists?"

The Doctor sighed. "Clara, sometimes...sometimes when you care about another person, you do things. Silly things. Complicated things that make your life very difficult but make their life better. This is one of those things. Sherlock...Sherlock is going to fake his own suicide. Seven months later, John is going to kill himself-for real this time; no rubber handballs or elusive tricks."

"Rubber handballs?"

"Yes, yes, it's a long story-you'll find out in about eleven months, but that's not the point."

"So what is the point?"

"The point," the Doctor slowed for effect. "The point is that, even though he's trying to save it, the world will be a very bad place without Sherlock Holmes. John's death is just the beginning. It all gets worse after that. And we've got to stop it."

The Doctor Explains Reichenbach

Clara had only been traveling with the Doctor for several months, but she'd already had her fair share of his antics. She was not just about to let him go blundering about London, trying to save a character she had until recently believed to be fictional, without a further explanation. As the Doctor moved towards the door of the TARDIS, Clara deftly stepped in his path, blocking his way. As he reached around her for the doorknob, she pushed her body up against the door to stop it opening.

"Now wait a minute," she intoned authoritatively. "I'm not going to let you just traipse out of here without telling me what's going on." She looked kindly into his eyes. "Now please, Doctor. Just tell me what's going on."

The Doctor, not at all surprised at her unwillingness, let go of the doorknob and turned around. Walking back to the console, he gestured as he spoke. "Well, I guess I could explain the details. But Clara..." He turned back to face her. "Whatever I tell you now, you've got to trust me later."

Clara nodded in acknowledgment, and the Doctor hoisted himself up to sit on the console's handrail.

"Sherlock Holmes..." the Doctor trailed off. "Sherlock Holmes is a great man. Absolutely brilliant, a master of logic. There isn't a puzzle he can't solve. But he's also a good man, Clara. There isn't a thing he wouldn't do for the people he cares about."

"So he's a lunatic with a heart of gold." Clara chuckled and came to sit beside the Doctor on the railing. "I'm still not seeing the problem."

"It's like I said before. Sometimes, when you care about a person, you do things. Silly things that cause you trouble in the end."

Clara spoke, filling in the gaps. "Right. Sherlock pretends to die. But why is that a problem? He'll still be alive...won't he, Doctor?"

The Doctor silently studied his hands, intently thinking of the best way to explain Sherlock's future predicament. "Sherlock will fake his own suicide, yes, to save the people he loves. But he can't tell them he's not really dead. He'll go underground, live in hiding for seven months. He'll be alive, but not really. Not to the people who matter, the people who need him most. And it will drive them mad." He turned his face towards Clara. "Imagine if you loved someone very, very much, Clara. Imagine that person got themselves killed trying to protect you, and you blamed yourself for their death."

Clara sat, quiet, as a thousand images of her mother replayed themselves through her brain.

"You wouldn't want to go on. You'd feel so guilty and undeserving and alone." The Doctor sighed. "That's how John will feel. He'll try not to-he'll try to keep on. For seven months, he'll try to keep on. But he won't be able to. Eighteen months from now, John Watson will kill himself, Clara."

Clara woke from her quiet reflection with a question. "But how will Sherlock know? And why are we here now, if he won't do anything for awhile?"

"We need to catch him at the exact moment he sees John pull the trigger. He'll be desperate, looking for help. He'll want to phone for an ambulance, and-" the Doctor pointed towards the door, "he'll walk right through there. But we can't just plant the TARDIS on the corner that morning without arousing his suspicions. He's hyperobservant-notices everything, down to the last crack in the pavement. We've got to park the TARDIS on the corner before he moves into 221B Baker Street. He's stopping by later today to chat with Mrs. Hudson about moving in, so we haven't got much time. We've got to park the TARDIS, right here, for the next year and a half."

Clara's mouth hung open once again, but not because of the enormous amount of waiting the Doctor's plan entailed. "So...so that's a real place? 221B Baker Street is the real address of a real flat?"

The Doctor chuckled. "Of course it's real-the world's only consulting detective has got to live somewhere!" He hopped off the railing and waltzed towards the door. Three steps into his sashay, he spun dramatically on his heel to face Clara. "And yes, before you ask, Baskerville is real too. Though it wasn't really a hound," he muttered quietly to himself. "More like a...glow-in-the-dark rabbit."

The Doctor continued his waltzing motions as he turned once more towards the door. Clara, still perched on the railing, craned her neck and called out, "So...so that's it then? We're just going to wait here for eleven months until Sherlock pretends to kill himself? And then seven more months after that? And then when he comes rushing in, what, we're just going to whisk him away in the TARDIS and fix everything?"

The Doctor, who had by this time grasped the handle of the TARDIS door and cracked it open several inches, turned his head. "Of course not. It's London! We're going to go get some chips first."


	3. Part III: Sherlock and the TARDIS

**PART III: Sherlock and the TARDIS**

**Eighteen Months Later: Baker Street**

Sherlock dropped his cigarette and strode over to the emergency callbox on the corner. It'd sat there for years, since before he'd moved into 221B, its weathered blue wood a relic of a time long past. He'd never seen anyone actually use it-perhaps it didn't even work anymore-but then again, people usually turned to him, not the police, when crime found its way to Baker Street.

He tentatively pushed on the door, mentally begging it to open. He was almost surprised when he felt the wood give way and swing back under his hand. Stepping inside, he blindly reached for the receiver. His hand swiped at empty air twice before he actually looked at his surroundings.

What he saw caused him to blink—twice.

Just inside the door, a brunette girl was struggling to pull an over-inflated soufflé out of a tiny oven without losing the enormous chef's hat perched on her head.

The door banged shut behind Sherlock, startling the girl and causing her to turn head towards him, unfortunately losing her hat in the process.

"Oh hello! You must be Sherlock. The Doctor said you'd be stopping in. Fancy a soufflé?" The girl's voice exuded incredible energy, as though she had packed the lifeforce of a thousand girls into one petite frame. With a final tug, she freed the soufflé from its culinary prison and, ramekin in hand, approached Sherlock.

"Impossible," he breathed.

"That's me. I'm Clara!" She held out an oven-mitt clad hand in greeting, precariously juggling the hot soufflé on her opposite palm. "The Impossible Girl. Pleasure. Welcome to the TARDIS."

"Impossible. You can't be real," Sherlock muttered again. "You aren't real. None of this is real." He spun on his heel and reached for the door.

"If this isn't real, why are you reaching for the door?" a voice called out from across the room. Sherlock paused and turned around. Looking slightly up, he saw a figure hunched over a tangled mass of wires and screens and gadgets in the centre of the room. Straightening, the figure jumped off the raised centre platform and jauntily ambled over to Sherlock.

Sherlock's mind snapped back to capacity and he instinctively observed the man. Man, yes. Young—perhaps in his late twenties. Fond of the past-yes, that's obvious from the bowtie and outdated suit. A bit goofy.

"We're very real, Clara and I. Clara's my companion and you—you are Sherlock Holmes! The world's only consulting detective—but mind you, not the only one in the universe. You are brilliant, you! And oh, now you're here. Here! In the TARDIS." The man's grin stretched across his face, accentuating his too-pointy chin.

"It's a trick," Sherlock muttered, surveying his surroundings. He scanned the room. "There are mirrors, wires—it's an illusion. I don't know how. But it's an illusion." He waltzed from corner to corner, inspecting every inch of the control room. Failing to find any mechanism capable of producing such an illusion, he shrank back towards the door. "A trick, that's all," he repeated. Fleeing the same way he had entered, he stepped outside and began to intensely inspect the exterior of the alleged time-and-space machine.

The Doctor followed, leisurely leaning against the doorframe as he watched the detective scrambling to find a reasonable explanation."If you're looking for wires and mirrors, you won't find any," the Doctor called from his post. "You're a lot like Dickens, you know. He couldn't believe it either-at first." The Doctor grinned fondly, bemused by the memory.

Sherlock walked back to the funny little man, whose bowtie, the detective noticed, was casually askew. _Probably couldn't figure how to tie it properly_, Sherlock silently opined. _Few people can._ The detective's eyes swept over the self-proclaimed Time Lord once more, looking for any hint—a glance towards a secret lever, a smile in the direction of a well-placed mirror—of the illusion.

"It's real, Sherlock. All of it."

"It can't be." The detective turned once more to the exterior walls of the TARDIS, frantically running his hands over the wooden panelling, searching, searching for something; he knew not quite what.

"Sherlock, it's real. You've seen it: every corner, every pane of glass. You've felt wood splinter under your own hands. You've measured and remeasured. It's all real. There's no—no trick." The Doctor shook his head almost imperceptibly, an expression of both surprise and disappointment: surprise that Sherlock could be so terribly thorough and disappointment at the detective's unwillingness to accept the obvious physicality of the TARDIS.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock noticed the Doctor's ever-so-slight head movement and paused. As if waking from a reverie, he stopped caressing the callbox. His eyes narrowed. "Of course," he breathed. "Of course." He banged both hands against the blue wood, his words, an angry exhalation. "It's not the box." He pivoted, back against the panelling now, gripping it for support as he lowered down onto his haunches. "It's _me_."

He had, of course, heard of it happening before: the witness of tragedy, so overcome by unexpected grief, whose rational faculties were subsumed by horror. The bereaved widow, setting out a coffee mug for her recently interred husband; the fresh orphan, waiting expectantly on the front step for parents that would never arrive home; the shellshocked soldier, imagining a comrade who didn't exist-anymore. All of whom who, upon the collapse of their everyday lives, entered a world all their own. It worked as a mental reprieve: the imagination, the last sanctuary in a mind stricken with pain.

And of course, with a mind so complex as his own, he would have dreamt up such a sophisticated fantasy. He had always liked physics-not as much as chemistry, but leave it to Sherlock Holmes to hallucinate a scientifically advanced mode of quantum travel.

Faced now with what could only be his own temporary insanity, the detective closed his eyes. _I must find my way back to the __**real**_, he meditated. Closing his eyes, he massaged his temples. He began muttering under his breath.

_Zero._

_One. One. Two. _

_Three._

_Five. Eight. _

He opened his eyes. The TARDIS' blue paint was still visible in his peripheral vision. His eyes closed once more. He began muttering more rapidly, working his fingers through his unruly black curls as he spoke.

_All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore Socrates is mortal._

_If some M are P, and all M are S, then some S are P._

_Knowledge is justified true belief. _

Clara poked her head out of the TARDIS' front door. Noticing Sherlock's hunched figure, she turned to the Doctor. "Not much of a genius now, is he? Looks more like a loony if you ask me. What's gotten into him?" She crinkled her nose, nodding in the direction of the detective.

"He convinced that he's gone mental from the shock of John's death."

"Well, he wouldn't be far off," Clara said with a somewhat sympathetic grimace. She moved closer, intending to shake the detective from his hellish monologue of syllogisms, but the Doctor quietly stopped her.

"Don't. Let him be, Clara. He needs this."

Sherlock, oblivious to their conversation, had moved on from logic to chemistry.

"_Hydrogen. Helium. Lithium. Beryllium. Boron. Carbon. Nitrogen. Oxygen. Fluorine. Neon. Sodium. Magnesium. Aluminium. Silicon. Phosphorus. Sulfur. Chlorine. Argon. Potassium. Calcium. Scandium. Titanium. Vanadium. Chromium. Manganese. Iron. Cobalt. Nickel. Copper. Zinc. Gallium. Germanium. ArsenicSeleniumBromineKryptonRubidiumStrontiumYttriumZirconiumNiobiumMolybdenum_

_TechnetiumRutheniumRhodiumPalladiumSilverCadmiumIndiumTinAntimonyTelluriumIodine_

_XenonCesiumBariumLanthanumCeriumPraseodymiumNeodymiumPromethiumSamarium_

_EuropiumGadoliniumTerbiumDysprosiumHolmiumErbiumThuliumYtterbiumLutetiumHafniumTantalumTungstenRheniumOsmiumIridiumPlatinumGoldMercuryThalliumLeadBismuth_

_PoloniumAstatineRadonFranciumRadiumActiniumThorium_

_ProtactiniumUraniumNeptuniumPlutoniumAmericiumCuriumBerkeliumCaliforniumEinsteinium_

_FermiumMendeleviumNobeliumLawrenciumRutherfordiumDubniumSeaborgiumBohrium_

_HassiumMeitneriumDarmstadtiumRoentgeniumCoperniciumUnuntriumFleroviumUnunpentium_

_LivermoriumUnunseptiumUnunoctium."_

With a final sforzando, Sherlock finished listing all known elements in order of increasing atomic number, his eyes flying open as the last syllable of 118—the linguistic nightmare _ununoctium—_fled his lips.

He hands moved to the pavement beneath his feet, his mind instantly aware that his surroundings had not changed. Feeling the same worn cement beneath his fingers brought concreteness to the disappointing realisation. "No," he stated simply. He jumped up from his crouch and spun on his heel. "No," he said more forcefully.

"It's not like a spell, you know," Clara scoffed, not bothering to conceal her disdain. Eighteen months of waiting to save the supposed genius had worn her patience down to a thin facade. "You can't just mutter the right words and be gone. This is the TARDIS, not Hogwarts. And how come you're so keen to be rid of us, anyway? We're here to help you."

Slowly accepting that his mind was not deluding him, Sherlock pointed at Clara and the Doctor. "You." His finger shook with disbelief and frustration, and he stepped a good deal closer to the pair. "You. It's got to be you. I'm not delusional; you are. You really believe this fantastical story, don't you? A box that's magically bigger on the inside-and you want someone to share it with. You've drugged me and all this is merely the product of the hyper-functioning of an amphetamine-riddled mind."

The detective re-evaluated the eccentric man once more. _Oh, it was so obvious_, Sherlock reflected. _His hair, the way he fiddled with that contraption—obviously delusional. The exact type that would assault gullible passerby by hiding inside a faux police box and then sticking them with a needle full of LSD. _

The Doctor smirked a quiet smirk. "Oh, now you think I'm the mental one. Tricky bit, this part. But luckily I've had eighteen months to figure it out."

"Figure what out?" Clara piped up, eyeing the Doctor with confusion.

"Figure out how to prove to Sherlock Holmes that I am not a lunatic." He took two steps forward. The Doctor could taste the stale nicotine clinging to Sherlock's coat. Craning his giraffe-like neck, the Doctor whispered an inaudible phrase into the detective's left ear.

All light fled Sherlock's face. His shoulders grew rigid and his spine stiffened to an impossibly perfect posture. "Who are you?" he questioned darkly. "How do you know that?"

"Right, yes. I know lots of things. I'm the Doctor, I'm a 900-year-old alien, and I'm here to help you." The Doctor gazed evenly into Sherlock's eyes.

"Oh shut up. Aliens are fictions sold to average people by overpaid, undertalented Hollywood writers. Do not insult my intelligence. Tell me who you are." The disdain in Sherlock's voice was palpable. "Did Mycroft send you?"

"I'm the last of the Time Lords—an ancient race from the planet Gallifrey. This is the TARDIS; it's short for Time And Relative Dimension In Space. She can take you anywhere you want to go-anywhere, in space _or_ time. And this—" he reached and wrapped his arm around the girl's shoulder, "is Clara. She's my companion." The Doctor grinned, pleased with his concise distillation of the relevant, if somewhat complicated, facts.

Sherlock's sneer only deepened at this explanation.

"Oh, you don't believe me." The Doctor's voice quieted. "So tell me, Sherlock Holmes: who do _you_ think I am?"


	4. Part IV: Running

**PART IV: Running**

"I…I don't know," Sherlock admitted.

"Your mind—your wonderful, beautiful, brilliant mind—is telling you I can't be real, that none of this can be real." The Doctor flapped his hands about as he spoke. "But it _is_ real; I _am_ real; and until you can figure out how it all rationally works, you're just going to have to trust me."

Sherlock stiffened at the thought.

Noticing the detective's reluctance, the Doctor tried to reassure him. "And now you're thinking, 'Why ought I trust him? Why ought I believe a madman with a box?' And you're right; there are a thousand reasons not to. I probably wouldn't trust me, either." The Doctor laughed at himself, momentarily forgetting the sensitive situation he faced.

"Are you trying to persuade me? Because you're doing a bang up job. Top notch persuasion, right there. A real Cato. You should consider running for office. Mycroft would_ love_ to have you."

The Doctor's face grew serious once more. "I _can_ help you." His voice took on a quiet urgency as his eyes searched the detective's face for any sign of interest. "Do you want to save John?"

Sherlock's eyes glazed over as he remembered his friend—his friend, his flatmate, who now lay on the floor of their flat, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. But it wasn't suicide, not really—how could it be, when Sherlock's absence had provoked it? Seven months: how awful it must have been. How lonely. And how much blood—oh, how much blood there must be: all over the flat, on the floor, on his hands…

Sherlock could feel the cloying stickiness on his fingers, an invisible stain that would never rinse off.

"How can you _possibly_ help me?" the detective questioned, his voice hoarse with grief and guilt.

"You know that stuff I said about time travel?"

Sherlock nodded numbly, only half paying attention to the man with the bow tie.

"I wasn't lying." With those words, the Doctor pulled a lever on the console, and the TARDIS began to wheeze.

**Several Wibbly-Wobbly Minutes Later: Baker Street**

Sherlock tentatively stepped through the TARDIS door. Glancing around at the familiar London street scene, he frowned. "We haven't gone anywhere. It's just Baker Street."

The Doctor fairly sprung out of the blue box. "Well, it's not _really_ a 'where'. It's more of a 'when'," he corrected. He pointed toward the black door of detective's home. "Today is the day John moves into 221B. He should be along any moment now." The Doctor clapped Sherlock on the back. "Come along, Sherly. Let's take a walk." Turning on his heel, the Time Lord strode away from the detective's flat.

Sherlock followed, still in a daze.

The Doctor kept up an energetic pace, speaking and wringing his hands as he went. "Now, about your problem. John's shot himself, and you don't know what to do. Of course, he's only shot himself because you've flung yourself off a building—or you're going to, anyway, about a year and a half from now. Nice plan, by the way. Did I ever mention that? The corpse, the rubber ball, Molly—absolutely _brilliant_. Fantastic, really. So _believable_. But of course, that's the trouble; you've managed to convince everyone that your little stunt was real, including John. That's why I've brought you here, to your past. The only way you can fix your problem and prevent John's suicide is if he knows you're not—really—dead.

"Not today, of course—would be a bit rude, having that conversation just after he's moved in. No, I'll drop you off at a better time. John's sitting home, probably reading the paper; you walk in; you give him the good news that you're still alive, it was all a trick, this, that, the other thing—voila, crisis averted." He frowned. "Though that still might be just a bit awkward." He stopped walking, shoving his hands into his pockets and thoughtfully gazing at the sky. He sighed. "Always tricky, stopping someone dying."

"You still, uhm. You haven't explained how that would actually work." Sherlock struggled to focus on what the Doctor was saying. He swallowed. He glanced back up the block at his former—future?—flat. John was still inside, but he had also yet to arrive. John was dead, but also alive.

"Time. It's—well, it's a bit complicated. All wibbly-wobbly and…" The Doctor searched for the words. "Timey-wimey." He turned to face the detective and, noticing Sherlock's disparaging facial expression, he clarified. "The point is, time can be rewritten. The only question is: how to do it?"

Sherlock frowned as he began to understand. "But it is impossible. Time and causation—they're fixed. We can know that A caused B. It's logic."

The Doctor shook his head. "Time…is not simple, Sherlock. It's not straightforward and easy, and it's not even close to linear. Time is flexible. It can change—sure, there are certain fixed points that can't ever be altered, but lots and lots of things are changeable. Something as simple as a stray leaf blowing across the road can change a person's timeline forever. And that's how we're going to fix your problem!"

Sherlock chuckled in disbelief. "That's your solution, then? A maple leaf is going to keep John from killing himself? Please explain, because I'm a bit lost on how a piece of flora can un-pull a trigger."

"We have to alter John's timeline. A million events happen every day, Sherlock; a million notes woven into one grand melody. People burn their toast, buy bananas instead of pears, run the tap just a wee bit too hot when they're stepping into the shower; young people fall in love, babies are born, old ladies die in their sleep. And they're all interconnected, all of those individual moments orchestrated into the symphony of time. If you change one moment—just one—the entire song will change with it. We just have to find the right moment. Of course, it doesn't have to involve you just showing up like some sort of Kiss-o-gram surprise. I could always bring you back to before Reichenthingy—what did they call the painting? _The Reichenbach Falls_? You could talk to John. Prepare him. Let him know what's coming."

"I can't," Sherlock responded.

"You can. Or is it that you won't?" The Doctor snorted. "You humans. Always talking about how you wish you could go back in time, change the past, but when you finally have the opportunity, you won't do it. Which is it this time: are you scared you won't succeed? Or are you too lazy to even try?"

"I am neither scared or lazy." Sherlock spoke through gritted teeth. "There is nothing I can do. There never is and never was." He laughed derisively to himself. "My god, I was so _stupid_."

With a reassuring pat, the Doctor placed his hand on Sherlock's shoulder. "That's why I'm here to help you."

"How can you possibly help me? " Sherlock snarled as he whipped around, contemptuously shaking the Doctor's hand off his body. "My best friend—my only friend—is dead. He picked up a pistol, and he shot himself in the mouth. I saw it happen. I made it happen." Sherlock turned away, lost in his own disbelief. "Me and my stupid plan. Oh, god. How could I be such an _idiot_?"

His frustration with himself boiled over, and he lashed out, kicking at an aluminium trashcan on the curb. It knocked over, clattering to the ground and rolling into the street.

Sherlock's jaw locked; his face flushed with anger. He drew in breath with hard, shaky gasps.

Turning back towards the Doctor, he walked up close until he towered over the time traveling alien. Still breathing hard, he spoke in low, icy tones. "I tried to save him, and now he's dead. Don't think for one second that you can possibly help me."

The Doctor sighed. "And that's exactly your problem. You can't see the—the magic of it all. The entire universe is laid out before your eyes, from beginning to end, with all of its twists and turns and wibbly-wobbly potential, and instead of revelling in it, you want it to be logical, unchangeable, rigid.. But the universe doesn't make sense, Sherlock. It's full of mysteries that will never be solved and impossibilities that cannot be explained: impossibilities like Clara and Jack and an old blue box that is bigger on the inside. I've seen all of time and space tear itself into pieces; I've seen people who shouldn't exist; planets popping up overnight; girls in fireplaces and horses on spaceships—well, all of pre-revolutionary France, really—and even I don't understand it all." He turned aside, murmuring almost to himself. "I don't understand why I am the only one left."

Sherlock snorted and, teeth set in a sarcastic grin, turned to the Doctor. "No, you don't, do you? You don't understand why, and so you project your problems onto others. You waltz around the universe in your little blue box, pretending like you've got all the answers, but you don't. Oh, no. You're just as confused and alone as everyone else in the world. Why should I trust you to help me?"

The Doctor stood, silently gazing at the ground.

Sherlock seized the opportunity to continue snipping away at the Time Lord's confident persona. "When you first picked me up, in whatever you call that—that fantastic magic box that lets you float around the universe like a fairy—you said you were the last of the Time Lords. But if your society is so wonderful and advanced, why aren't you at home? At first I thought perhaps you're not welcome there-you are a bit funny, after all; perhaps they kicked you out after one too many jaunts through the park in that ridiculous hat—but a moment ago you said you were the only one left, so clearly your people don't exist anymore. They're extinct, probably violently, a genocide, based on all the residual angst. But that's alright, okay, at least you've still got a home to return to. Or do you? Because the one thing I cannot understand is why you would choose the life of a vagabond when you could easily return to Gallifrey and carry on.

"It can't be that you're bored; you'd be far too entertained by a banana suit to be easily bored." Sherlock slowed his tirade as he pieced together a logical conclusion, not because it required extra thought but because he wanted to words to sting properly.

"It's not just your people you've lost; it's your home too. It's not that you won't go home; you can't go home. But even if you could return to your precious Gallifrey, why would you, when you are so haunted by the destruction of your people that not even the whole of time and space can separate you from the spectre of your past?

"You—you're not a philanthropist. You don't save people out of charity—oh, no. You save them out of guilt. Why do you love these humans so much? Is it because of their feeble attempts at civilisation? No. It must be that they remind you of your people, your precious Time Lords: envied for their resources and hunted by every stronger race across the stars. You couldn't save them the first time around, Doctor, and now you feel you've been given a second go. Because you never could reconcile your existence and their destruction, could you? You don't understand why you survived. You don't think you deserved to, after what you did. Oh, don't look at me like that; it's written on your face and in your shoulders and in your mind-numbing optimism; I can read every word of your story in your gait, your hands, your hair. You're a doctor, and doctors have to make sacrifices, especially on the battlefield.

The Doctor clenched his teeth. Sherlock noticed.

"Is that what it was, then? Did you have to make a…_difficult _decision? Did you trade the lives of others to end the war? Is that why you're so intent on saving John now? Oh, _Doctor_. What have you done?

The Doctor, who had long ago hung his head, slowly raised his eyes to look at the detective.

"I didn't do the right thing," he admitted. "And I have regretted it every single day for four hundred years. I didn't do the right thing—" He paused, his eyes aching with desperation. "But you—you still can."

He nodded in the direction of 221B. "Look," he commanded.

Just as predicted, the former army doctor walked up seconds later, carrying a box containing his few possessions. Standing on the doorstep, he rang the bell. Despite being draped in an oversized tea cozy, John shivered.

"Do you see that?" the Doctor asked quietly. "That's John Watson. He's a doctor, a blogger, and your best friend. And he _matters, _Sherlock. Everyone matters; I've never met a person who didn't." The Doctor exhaled. "The thing about mattering, though, is that you matter even after you're gone."

The pair stood silently, watching as Mrs. Hudson opened the door and warmly welcomed the veteran into his new home.

Finally, the Doctor spoke. "Do you know exactly what's going to happen? Unless you work up the courage to help him, he doesn't stand a chance. He's going to die, Sherlock. And you're just going to stand there, in your big imposing coat, with your collar turned up and your cheekbones all rigid, looking all mysterious and not doing anything." He looked the detective straight in the eye.

"You don't do anything, he dies, and you live with the guilt for the rest of your life. Without him, you will think yourself truly alone—except you'll never be truly alone. Not really. You'll find yourself haunted by your past, living every moment with the spectre of what you did and what you failed to do. And you will try to run from it, but it will follow you everywhere. You will run so far, for so long—but you'll never run far enough. Is that what you want, Sherlock Holmes—to live out your days running from the ghost of John Watson?"


End file.
